


did you ever feel like they were ringing true?

by eleanna99



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, POV Patroclus, Patroclus is a Doctor, achilles is a dancer, they are both disasters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28922247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanna99/pseuds/eleanna99
Summary: “Αχιλλέας,” he says. Achilles.I can’t help but let out a small laugh, making Achilles raise his eyebrows in question- it’s not that the name he has given me is weird, we live in Greece, I have heard way worse. “It’s just-,” I start to explain, unable to hide my smile, “με λένε Πάτροκλο.” My name is Patroclus.It takes him a second and then he laughs as well. Neither of us probably remembers much of eighth grade Iliad, but that combination of names is not one you easily forget.
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so, I am Greek, I was taught the Iliad in eighth grade, I read The Song of Achilles a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> was I expected NOT to wonder what would happen if two people with those names happened to meet in admittedly the only place where they could possibly co-exist, which is modern day Greece?
> 
> was I expected NOT to indulge in my fantasies of them being reincarnations of the original heroes, fate bringing them together again and again?
> 
> if that was the case, oops.
> 
> (title is from 'glory' by bastille, give it a listen, you won't regret it)

The emergency room at night is a battlefield, filled with blood, sweat, and tears (and self-entitled assholes who think their snarky comments and overall rudeness will earn them priority treatment for the dull shoulder pain they’ve had for three months but just remembered they should probably get examined at three in the morning). It is also sponsored -but only sentimentally- by all kinds of different coffee brands and powered through with the hope of a light at the end of a tunnel, the sun that will come up in a few hours and signify the end of the shift (and sometimes, on the hardest nights, the retirement that will come about in forty years and signify the end of the torment). 

And resident doctors like me are fighting on the first line- young and inexperienced, energetic and indebted, we can get most of the work done efficiently (that is, without having to bother the consultant too much) but are also perfectly expendable. The ideal soldier.

I have successfully diagnosed a urinary tract infection, stitched up an open palm (courtesy of a kitchen knife and too much trust in one’s cooking skills), and flocked around an incoming car accident victim to get them cleaned up and ready for surgery. It’s not one of the worst nights and I even manage to take a sip of my having-gone-cold-hours-ago coffee that I have abandoned on a desk that’s not even mine since the beginning of this shift, before opening one of the separating curtains to deal with my next patient. At this point of the night, I just hope they will speak a language I can understand and not be too mad that they have probably been waiting for hopefully less than three hours to get someone to pay attention to them. The standards are pretty low these days. 

Who my eyes land on instead is, admittedly, one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen, and this is me putting my undeniable homosexual tendencies aside. A mix of dark skin and light brown curls and crystal blue eyes, one of those faces that make you wonder how anyone can be against racial mixing when such a wonder can be created- and definitely the kind of face you don’t often see in a place as ethnically homogenous as Greece. 

The only thing creating a ripple in this perfection is the vivid bruise that is slowly settling itself on his left cheekbone, paired with a swollen and bloody upper lip.

“I fell,” the patient says, matter-of-factly, and that’s enough to get me out of my admiring trance and back into business. Fluorescent lights, people shouting, stretchers rolling. I have work to do.

I take his vitals and examine him for bone fractures or anything that can easily be missed or prove to be life-threatening- at med school they always taught us about the importance of a detailed history, but when you actually graduate and are thrown into the vast chaotic sea of the Greek national health system, you understand that it’s not always possible and sometimes -most times- you just have to swim and make sure nobody, or at least as few people as possible, die on your shift. After all, the last thing you need is missing a patient’s unnoticed internal hemorrhage while you try to get them to describe their pain on a scale from one to ten, or remember if their father has ever complained about morning fatigue.

Other than a slightly elevated blood pressure and pulse rate, which are a normal occurrence in the emergency room, the problem seems to be limited to his face (that’s certainly a thought that has never crossed someone’s mind when looking at him before). Oh, and he definitely didn’t ‘fall’. I may not be able to throw a punch for the life of me, but I can definitely recognize one on someone else’s face.

I soak a gauze in saline solution to clean up his cut- he won’t be needing a lot other than that and some peroxide. The bruise will be gone in two weeks and he will go back to looking like the perfect human specimen soon enough.

If this visit is something not bound to happen again. 

“Hey,” I say quietly, leaning close to treat his injury, but also to make sure he is the only one who can hear me. “Did something happen? I can call the police if you want.” In these first two years of residency, I already have had more than a few cases of people who, for one reason or another, used the hospital as a refuge, running away from muggers, gangs, abusive households, drunk assholes who thought too highly of themselves. People who tended to ‘fall’ quite a lot. I made sure to always offer a way out, a call that the patients were hesitant to make themselves, terrified of what could follow. 

“No, it’s-” he starts, and flinches at the contact of peroxide to his busted up lip, no matter how delicately my fingers work, “it’s nothing. It was just a stupid fight.” I go on with my disinfecting, giving him the space to continue, should he want to. “I was leaving work and these two assholes were harassing my friends. Stupid homophobic-” he starts, his anger more than visible as he recalls the incident, but manages to hold himself back.

One last meticulous move and he is ready. “What’s your name?” I ask, reaching over to check his admission paper.

“Αχιλλέας,” he says.  _ Achilles _ . 

I can’t help but let out a small laugh, making Achilles raise his eyebrows in question- it’s not that the name he has given me is weird, we live in Greece, I have heard way worse. “It’s just-,” I start to explain, unable to hide my smile, “με λένε Πάτροκλο.”  _ My name is Patroclus.  _

It takes him a second and then he laughs as well. Neither of us probably remembers much of eighth grade  _ Iliad _ , but that combination of names is not one you easily forget. 

“Well, Achilles, thankfully nothing seems to be broken. Put some ice on it -not in direct contact with your skin- once you get home, take a painkiller if it hurts, but don’t overdo it,” I advise, as I throw away my disposable gloves. “You should feel fine in a couple of days and the bruise will start to fade soon.”

“Thank you, doctor,” he replies. He opens his mouth to say something more, but he is interrupted by the sound of an ambulance pulling up in front of the building, sirens blaring. Someone shouts my name from the hallway and I have to violently burst this bubble and go back to my duty.

“If you ever fall again, you know the way,” I say and, surprising most of all myself, I wink at him before running out the door. 

\---

What seems like eons later, the memory of our interaction so distant that it could have easily been an exhaustion-induced dream, my keys slide in the lock of my apartment in Pagkrati. The sun is shining bright in the morning Athens sky but all I can think about is the warmth of my bed (and the chill of the fan on the opposite side of the room- it’s the beginning of June, and the temperature is already getting unbearable). 

“Sissy?” I call out as I enter and drop my bag on the living room floor. Our place is far from a palace, but it’s close to work and the rent and bills are not too bad when split in two and in the year we have lived here I have not come across a single cockroach, so it’s all mostly positive.

A bun of black curls peaks out from the bathroom door, two brown eyes too big for such a tiny person, a nose similar to mine, even though we are not related, and a mouth stuffed with a frantically moving toothbrush. Briseis, in all her morning glory. 

“Morning, Pat,” I think she says and in a matter of seconds she is out again, pulling her bag over her shoulder, cursing at her sandals for not having the basic dignity to tie themselves, the barely one hundred and sixty centimeters hurricane she usually is. An energy I can’t even fathom after more than twenty-four hours in a hospital and unfortunately more than one case that involved someone vomiting on me. “How was work?”

“ _ Fantastic _ ,” I say, mustering what’s left of my willpower into sarcasm, and not even regretting it. I’m already in my underwear by then, having already showered at the hospital to save time, the kind of proactive thinking I wish I had for things that did not just involve sleep or food. “I met the most beautiful man  _ ever _ ,” I manage to add as I turn on the fan in my room and prepare myself for at least ten hours of hopefully uninterrupted light coma. 

“Let it be known that I hate you for bringing this up when you are half-asleep and I am already late,” she accuses me pointedly from the doorway, her voice barely reaching the corresponding processing centers in my brain at this point. “Did you at least get his number?” I must have made a sound that resembled something like a ‘no’, or something close enough for her to sing “You’re an  _ idiot _ !” her voice disappearing either by the door shutting behind her or my body finally renouncing the idea of having to properly function for even one second more.

It was true. I was an idiot. And I didn’t have his number. But I had his name.

  
_ Achilles _ .


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the support on the first chapter! <3
> 
> so in chapter 2 there is glitter, rainbows and the chaos continues, hope you enjoy!

“Ξύπνα, έφερα φαγητό.”

Sissy’s voice manages to intrude my slumber and I would be mad at her, if she hadn’t used those particular words.  _ Wake up, I’ve brought food. _

  


I all but crawl to the bathroom to wash my face as she sets the coffee table in the living room that has been our meeting spot ever since we moved into this apartment. If I had to describe home, it would be two plates, two forks, two glasses filled with water and ice cubes and the two of us sitting on the floor, fighting over whatever delicacy lies in the plastic container in front of us. Today it is (supposedly) two portions of  _ pastitsio _ , admittedly enough to feed at least four people.

  


“Mrs Anthi?” I ask as I take my spot on the cushion opposite to her.

  


“The one, the only, the beloved.” Sissy has been tutoring kids in English for a few months, while she’s working on her Master’s thesis and, other than the extra income, it comes with little unexpected perks like the students’ moms who could put professional chefs to shame. The ‘Greek Mother’ stereotype personified, but I am not even close to complaining.

  


“So, tell me about the hot guy. It’s what got me through the day.” 

  


My brain takes a second to process her words, still foggy from the sleep and the smell of bechamel that has overtaken all my senses. Slowly, it all comes back to mind- the blue eyes, the chocolate skin, the purple bruise. I smile to myself.

  


“I am going to tell you a series of facts and I need you not to yell and get us one step closer to getting evicted, okay?” 

  


Her mouth is preoccupied with a mouthful that will take a while to work through, but she puts on her best ‘ _ how could you ever think that of me _ ’ look.

  


“He looked like a god or something,” is the simplest way I can express what my eyes have witnessed.

  


“You know I am the farthest thing from religious,” she mumbles as she finally manages to swallow, “but if that’s the case, I strongly suggest you get on your kn-” 

  


“Sissy!”

  


“Sorry, sorry, I’ll shut up, please continue.”

  


“He came to the ER because he got in a fist fight.”

  


“Ooh, kinky.”

  


“With some homophobes.”

  


“Marry him. Or sign a civil partnership with him or whatever this damn country expects of our poor gay souls.” 

  


The back and forth continues as I continue narrating my night between bites of food, sips of water, pauses in order to glare at my friend whenever she seems ready to unleash her inner chaos.

  


I deliberately wait until she’s done eating before I blurt out the last bit of information- I know the Heimlich maneuver, but her choking would probably put a negative spin on an otherwise enjoyable afternoon.

  


“His name is Achilles.” 

  


A high pitched sound that should not be accessible to humans escapes her body and Sissy crawls to my side of the table and takes my face between her small palms, as if her otherworldly screeches and widened eyes are not enough to reach the level of emphasis she aims for.

  


“This is  _ fate _ !” she declares.

  


“I am gonna need you to  _ calm down _ ,” I shoot back and give her shoulders a small shake, unable to hold back a laugh at all the unnecessary drama of the situation, that should honestly be expected after I presented something like that to a Philosophy student.

  


“My sweet summer child, don’t you see it? The misfortune of being named after epic characters brought you yours truly, and it’s gonna bring you the love of your life as well. I’m calling it.”

  


I don’t remind her that both Achilles and Patroclus die before the end of the book. She’s in too good a mood for that.

  


“What brought us together was your throwing up on my shoes after that one Pride parade,” is what I remind her of instead. Happy memories, that could be considered disgusting if people throwing up on me had not turned out to be a frequent occurrence. “And now that I’ve mentioned it, guess who got next Saturday off and will let you shower him in as much glitter as you want to commemorate the roots of this exhausting friendship?”

  


There’s that sound again. She hugs me, I lose my balance, we fall to the floor laughing. I have never been this happy that someone vomited on me almost eight years ago.

  


\---

  


“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Sissy asks me for the at least twentieth time that morning, as she’s going through yet another outfit that she will soon reject.

  


I’m sitting in the only armchair in our living room, a guinea pig in the hands of Chrysa, her girlfriend of three and a half years. Who flew in from London to surprise her and be here in time for Pride (there were tears - I am mature enough to admit that I contributed). Who brought me one of those gigantic airport chocolate bars and is currently using her professional make-up skills, that people actually pay for, to paint rainbows on my cheeks and sprinkle glitter around my eyes.

  


No, I definitely don’t mind being banished from the apartment from the night. They both deserve it.

  


“I know you’d do the same for me if I brought someone over,” I say, careful not to move my lips too much, ruin Chrysa’s work and mark her first day back home with murder. “It’s the roommate/best friend pact.”

  


“Dude, if I know you’re getting some, I will spend the entire night trying to find a bakery willing to make a ‘congratulations on the sex’ cake. It’ll be morning before I know it.”

  


It’s true that my love life recently has not been one for the books. Try being a resident doctor and you’ll understand why anything that takes up time during which you could be sleeping suddenly qualifies as nothing but a distraction.

  


“Ready,” Chrysa says, before I get the chance to find a pathetic excuse or sarcastic comeback.

  


I open my eyes to see her smiling at me- with her blond hair scraping her shoulders, impeccable make-up and flowy floral dress, she looks like a fairy- admittedly a slightly intimidating one, standing a little above one meter seventy-five.

  


I stand up and walk to the mirror. The rainbows, the eyeshadow, the glitter, it’s… different to say at the very least, but it still feels as ‘me’ as my scrubs do. 

  


Behind me, Sissy is standing on her tiptoes for a quick kiss- she seems to have settled for jean shorts and a ‘be gay, do crimes’ crop top. They look like every stereotype with every possible plot twist and it warms my heart to see them this happy, to witness that love like this exists and can survive despite all the hardships, especially on a day as important as this one.

  


Of course, that’s not what I say. I make a gagging sound, tell them they are disgusting and push them out the door so we can finally be on our way.

  


\---

  


It’s still early when we get to Syntagma square, but the place is already almost crowded. There is music and colors and rainbows and laughter, little kiosks for all the different organizations and a big stage where some dance team is currently rehearsing for tonight’s festivities, and I swear this is the most beautiful Athens has ever been.

  


We are standing somewhere behind the stage so we can use the railing that protects some speakers and cables as something to lean on- despite the general feeling of happiness, no one can ignore the scorching heat of the Greek summer, the sun showing off its power high above our heads, not a single cloud in the blue sky. I am all but forcing Sissy to drink water, giving some speech about the importance of hydration during this time of the year and I barely have time to see her eye-roll when someone behind me shouts for help.

  


Look, I know it’s my day off. I know it’s a day of celebration, meant to be stress-free. But I discovered a long time ago that I can’t leave my doctor instinct to soak in disinfectant alongside my scrubs back home- and honestly, a stress-free mode apparently was not included in my default settings.

  


Like a bloodhound, my head snaps to the direction of the noise and it only takes seconds to locate it as coming from the stage next to me. I am over the railing and going up the metal steps that are connecting it to the ground, when a thought barely scratches the back of my mind, that what I am doing is probably not exactly allowed.

  


Other people have had that thought as well apparently, because I have barely set foot on the floor when someone tall enough to scare me blocks my path, saying I can’t be there, and I know I have a good excuse, but measuring it next to this dude’s biceps, it still falls short.

  


“He’s a doctor, let him through!”

  


My brain short circuits, as I realize where that voice is coming from, and my mind and vision field are split in three. In front of me, the huge security guy, who takes a step back. In the back, someone is on the floor, a group of people gathered around them, visibly upset. 

  


And in between, two blue eyes and a bruise on a cheekbone, now that yellow-ish vomit color.

  


Throughout my life, I firmly believe I’ve left chunks of my grey matter all around- in the hospital after a 36-hour shift, in my bedroom after clicking ‘next episode’ for the seventh time in a row, in med school every day for six years. So you’ll have to excuse me for not having the mental capacity to deal with all of what was happening.

  


Turns out that my profession is still etched deep enough in what’s left of my cerebral contents, so despite the absurdity of the events unraveling before my eyes, I still push my way through to the source of my original calling. I’ll deal with the rest later, or I’ll just run off stage and get day drunk and let my soul ascend into a state of perpetual rainbow-ness or whatever the gods of Pride shall grant me- honestly, anything that does not include feeling weak at the knees like some lovestruck fifteen-year-old.

  


I tell the small crowd to take a step back and I must sound authoritative enough because they actually listen to me. And there’s my patient of the day- female, around eighteen, pale and currently unconscious at my feet.

  


I kneel beside her and start working the algorithm as if in auto-pilot- her airway is open, she’s breathing steadily, her pulse is a little weak but within limits.

  


I stand back up and hold her legs at an angle, urging someone who witnessed the incident to tell me exactly what happened. Apparently, Sophia suddenly stopped the routine, tried to say something about not feeling very well and was passing out before she could finish her sentence. 

  


“I caught her in time, she didn’t hit her head or anything,” a guy nearby says.

  


“I think it’s because of the heat, we’ve been rehearsing out here for hours.”

  


“She complained about period cramps during the water break,” someone else adds and any last hints of worry drain away from me.

  


“She’ll be fine,” I reassure, and as if on cue, Sophia lazily opens her eyes. “Hey, love, don’t be scared,” I focus on her, knowing how confusing it feels to wake up from a faint. “You got a little dizzy, but you’re okay now. I’m Patroclus, what’s your name?” I ask. I know the answer, but at this point it’s very crucial that she knows it too.

  


She blinks once, twice. “Sophia.”

  


“How are you feeling, Sophia?”

  


“I’m okay,” she says. Most of the color has returned to her face and the sweat is drying on her brow. ‘A successful body reboot,’ I remember someone saying after one of us passed out during a surgery back in med school. 

  


More than five minutes have passed by now so I let her legs down and ask her if she thinks she can sit up. She does so willingly and I can see the tension slowly leaving the rest of the group as well.

  


I ask a girl that seems to be the least terrified (and not as scarred for life as some of the others) for a bottle of cold water and something salty. I sit on the floor next to Sophia, answer her questions, silently check for signs of something more serious, but she genuinely seems to be fine now. She’s not even that scared- it has happened to her before, she tells me, a combination of poor blood pressure and a uterus that at times seems to despise her.

  


“Guys, they are asking us to clear the stage.” That presence I had very meticulously pushed to the very back of my head in order to function makes itself known again. “I’ll take Sophia to my dad to rest and we’ll meet back here in two hours- make sure to eat and stretch, okay?”

  


I am slightly shocked by the discipline in the chorus of  _ ‘yes, sir’ _ that goes around, as people start to disperse. A hand helps me up while Achilles carefully raises the girl back to her feet. He wasn’t anywhere close while I had been helping her return to consciousness (I was focused, yes, but trust me, I would have noticed), but now he hugs her and kisses the top of her head and there’s genuine affection in his eyes as well as a lot of leftover fear- that’s what I am going to blame his earlier absence on.

  


“Thank you, doctor,” Sophia says kindly, turning to me. 

  


Achilles opens his mouth to say something as well, but I interrupt him. “I’ll come with you, in case you need anything else.”

  


They both nod and I think I catch Achilles smiling before turning to help Sophia down the stairs- but that might just be the heat messing with my eyes.

  


It takes me a moment to realize that I said I would follow them without really knowing where they were headed, so when they stop in front of the Proud Parents kiosk, I am slightly taken aback.

  


A man comes out from behind the counter, and I know for sure that this is Achilles’ father. He is shorter than his son, but he has the same complexion and hair and that smile that makes his eyes -dark brown, this time- light up.

  


I stay back as they explain the situation, and the man’s joy turns to worry as he takes Sophia’s face in his hands. She says something reassuring and they all head inside- that’s my cue to go, I think.

  


I buy two cold water bottles from a place nearby, aiming to drink one of them in around three gulps and save the other one for later in Chrysa’s backpack. I start wondering where the girls might be and what the best way would be to narrate everything that happened after I abandoned them, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I know -or maybe hope?- who it is before I even turn- call it instinct, call it fate.

  


“Hey,” Achilles says.

  


“Hi,” I reply, incredibly proud of my eloquence once more. I helped a person in need while covered in glitter, so give me a break.

  


“Thanks, for what you did,” he starts, and before I can say anything, “That’s not how I imagined I’d meet you again.”

  


It’s my life aspiration to cut people open for a living so you can imagine how ashamed I am of the effect his words have on my supposedly made-of-steel nerves. Hopefully the rainbows on my cheeks are enough to hide the blush I feel creeping in, otherwise I’ll have to blame it on the sun and that will cross the line of pretentiousness I have set for myself.

  


“Your bruise is almost healed,” is all I manage to say. Maybe I’ll get a similar one, if I manage to punch myself in the face like I so desperately want to at the moment.

  


He chuckles and shrugs. “What can I say, I had a good doctor.”

  


I am prepared to spontaneously combust, because by intergalactic standards, it can’t be fair for someone to be  _ that _ hot and  _ that _ smooth at the same time. For example, I am decent at my job but a stuttering embarrassed disaster. Balanced, as all things should be.

  


His phone rings, he excuses himself and picks up. “Sophia needs another bottle of water,” he explains as he hangs up, looking apologetic.

  


Without thinking, I extend my hand and offer him the spare one I just bought. I don’t let him reject it.

  


“You said I am a good doctor and good doctors care for their patients,” I say, all but forcing the bottle in his palm. That was a nice, full sentence, could even be considered witty. Good job, Patroclus.

  


He understands that resistance is futile, so he just nods. “We’ll be chilling on the stage after the show. Drop by and I’ll pay you back.” He winks, and is gone.

  


I want to scream or  _ at least _ pour all the ice cold content of the plastic container I am holding on my face, make-up be damned.

  


As if I had telepathically communicated my murderous thoughts towards her work, Chrysa appears in front of me, Sissy following right behind her.

  


“Was that…?” the blonde asks, pointing to the direction towards which the root of my distress had disappeared.

  


“Yes. If either of you say anything involving the word ‘fate’, I will smudge your eyebrows.”

  


“Patroclus,” my roommate starts, in her most serious voice, which admittedly does not sound that serious, “if you have not hooked up with that man until the end of the night, you will be a disgrace to our honorable household.”

  
“It’s  _ destiny _ !” Chrysa adds, and my very valuable water ends up on them instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! this pride chapter is definitely not over yet, that's all I'm gonna say


	3. Chapter 3

It’s well past midnight when I take the first bite of my newly acquired sandwich and wonder when I turned into such a coward. 

The day’s events have been over for a while now- we have marched, we have sung and screamed at the top of our lungs, we have danced under a rain of glitter and taken selfies that will certainly turn up on Instagram stories as birthday wishes soon enough.

Amidst all the joyful chaos, I haved almost managed to forget the earlier encounter, or rather forcefully banish it to the back of my head in order to enjoy myself to the fullest. But now, with Sissy and Chrysa gone and me left alone with my food of dubious quality and joints that hurt a little more than they probably should at the prime age of twenty-six, I let my mind wander to the stage that is still standing there across the road and what was promised to be awaiting there.

I let my feet carry me back to the square, as close as they can before the survival instinct kicks in and flashing red ‘abort mission’ signs take over my head. I can see people slouching onstage, talking and laughing and drinking as technicians gather up cables and speakers around them. I catch a glimpse of brown curls, bouncing as he laughs at some joke, and I have to remind myself that if I can easily walk up to a stranger and ask to examine their genitals, I can join a company that, after all, I had been invited to.

“Doctor!” I hear a woman’s voice, for once riddled with evident joy instead of hasty worry. I trace it to Sophia who is waving enthusiastically at me with a can of beer in her hand, her rosy cheeks in stark contrast with the pale complexion I had to deal with what seemed like centuries ago, but was in fact earlier today. “Come sit with us!”

I rush up the steps before I can chicken out and look around at the group- I recognize a couple of faces from this morning’s incident, and they seem to do too, because they greet me with smiles that ease the weight that was burdening my shoulders. I catch Achilles’ eyes among them- he grins, scoots to the side and pats the floor next to him, and the weight disappears completely.

As I sit down, I hear a chorus of names as people introduce themselves and I make an effort to remember as many as possible. They all seem to be in a mixed state of exhaustion and contentment- a stretch, a yawn, sweat and smudged make-up, but also chuckles, a song here and there, and a few six packs of beers placed in the middle. Tired after a long day, but not wanting it to end just yet. 

They talk in groups and then all together and then one on top of each other and I can’t help but smile as a girl -Helen, I am pretty sure?- tosses me a beer. Despite my own tiredness, I am acutely aware of Achilles’ presence next to me, our knees touching as we both sit cross-legged, and when I turn to look at him, his gaze is wandering around the group, with a smile wider than mine. His curls have dropped a little from all the sweat and there are dark circles forming under his eyes and mixing with the shadow of the shrinking bruise and somehow he looks more beautiful than I have ever seen him before. 

“Στην υγειά μας,”, I tell him and his eyes focus on me again.  _ Cheers _ . We clink our tin cans and, as expected during a summer night with no fridge around, the beer is lukewarm- I honestly can’t care less. 

“Did you catch the show?” he asks, as he takes a sip of his own.

“Missed part of it,” I confess guiltily. “I had to help my friends find a cab. Sorry.” At that moment, I had been preoccupied with making sure the girls made it home safe and sound, but now that I knew they were fine -and probably engaging in unholy actions right next to my bedroom- I let myself wonder what he might have looked like dancing.

“It’s okay, there’ll be other ones,” he says. His shrug indicates that he really does not mind and I hope his words indicate that I will also be invited to those ‘other ones’.

“So, a dance teacher?” I ask him, remembering the discipline all the others exhibited whenever he spoke that morning. Even now, in this much more relaxed environment, I could see the admiration and respect in the kids’ eyes every time they talked to him.

“And a dancer myself, don’t make me sound that old,” he shoots back and we both laugh. “Classically trained, actually, but this helps pay the rent.” He nods toward the group, and I decide to let him be nonchalant, as if it isn’t evident that he would jump into fire for any one of them. 

People are slowly standing up, one after the other, names of neighborhoods flying around, hoping for a shared cab.  _ Ψυχικό, Αιγάλεω, Πειραιάς,  _ I hear and every time I glance over to Achilles to see if he will react to any of those callings. He doesn’t move.

“I can guarantee that none of them will mug you, if you want to catch a ride,” he says instead.

I laugh. “My roommate has banished me for the night,” I admit and he seems to understand exactly what I am talking about. “I’ll probably catch the first bus in the morning, it will save me the taxi money anyway.”

“Where to?”

“Pagkrati, you?”

“Exarcheia.” 

I try not to make my smile too obvious. He can easily walk to Exarcheia. If he’s staying, it’s because he wants to. 

We sit on that stage for hours, cracking open beer after beer, as the group disperses. We talk and laugh and comment on this and this and this.

He talks about the performance and how awesome the singer they worked with was. I tell him about the hospital and the homophobic colleague that wants to get me fired (I want to get him fired too, we’ll see who will win in the end). He reminisces about the surprise birthday party they threw him at the dance school and I narrate the exact story about Sissy’s vomit on my shoes on a night like this that led to a lifelong friendship. 

“Your dad seemed awesome by the way,” I say, remembering the kind eyes of the man who helped Sophia, in his rainbow Proud Parents shirt. 

“He is,” he replies and there’s a new kind of love in his look. “He’s the best person I know.” I don’t reply, testing the waters of whether he wants to share more or not, just like I did back in the hospital. For the first time that night, he looks down at his shoes instead of directly facing me. 

“He came to Greece from Nigeria when he was sixteen, he didn’t speak a single word of Greek. And some people were great but others were total assholes and he worked and worked and worked and managed to bring me up with nothing but love and kindness and acceptance and he did that all on his own.” 

I am usually not nosy, so it must be the beer talking when I ask, “Your mom?” 

He smiles, but there’s a hint of bitterness. “They met when she was on vacation here and they had me. But she had a life and a career back in Sweden, so she had to leave. I was four.” 

“I’m sorry,” I say earnestly and place a gentle hand on his knee. I am usually too much of a coward, so this is definitely the beer.

“It’s okay, really. She has a new family over there, I’ve got two little brothers. She pays for my tickets whenever I want to fly over to see them, but I haven’t been in a while.” He raises his eyes to look at me, and then at his leg, and I take back my hand, the still sober part of my brain wondering if I crossed a line. “Yours?” 

I know he does it to change the subject. I know I can refuse to answer, say something generic, even lie. But I don’t feel the need to say anything but the truth. 

“I don’t have parents,” I blurt out and I wince when his eyes widen, the beer burning in my esophagus. “Sorry, that sounded  _ way _ too dramatic, I am not a robot nor did I appear out of thin air. My mother gave birth at a hospital and left me there, I grew up in an orphanage after that. So yeah, I certainly  _ have _ parents somewhere, I just don’t know who they are.” 

That is the pretty condensed version. I don’t mention that I asked the hospital when I turned eighteen and all they could tell me was that my mother was sixteen at the time of my birth and she never gave her real name, or the father’s. I stopped caring after a while- you can choose your family, and I have found my own. Or at least I am telling myself I don’t care. On days like this, I sometimes catch myself hoping that under different circumstances, they would be behind that Proud Parents table as well.

He doesn’t know what to say, and I don’t blame him. He stands up and holds out his hand instead. “Do you want to walk for a bit?” 

I get to my feet and it takes me more than a second to find my balance. There are a few blurry spots in my vision and my stomach is heavy after god-knows-how-many cans of beer, which also make me have to mentally beg my bladder to stand up to the challenge. Normally, I use my job as an excuse not to drink. But, as Sissy would paraphrase, the truth is that I am a ‘weak-ass bitch who can’t really hold his alcohol’, and it had been a while since I was this strongly reminded of that fact.

It’s almost five in the morning so we walk to the bus station, which happens to be on the way to Achilles’ house as well. Thankfully, the light morning breeze helps my senses stay above the minimum level of alertness (that is, not pass out in the middle of the sidewalk, forever embarrassed in the eyes of a guy I slowly realize how undeniably attracted to I am).

It’s a mostly silent walk, but when shoulders bump or fingers brush every now and then, it doesn’t feel weird. It doesn’t make me want to run and hide. It makes me laugh at Patroclus from earlier that night, who was afraid to walk up to him to say a simple hello. And when we reach the bus stop and he insists he is going to wait with me (admittedly very functional and sober, adding proof to my theory about him not being human), I want to kiss him. 

But we have established long ago that I am a coward.

_ Ask for his number. _

Panic suddenly presides when the board notifies us that my bus will arrive in just one minute. I fumble for the right words, but nothing not-utterly-embarrassing comes to mind, a mind that hasn’t been impressive under sober conditions either and I know I am asking too much of.

_ His Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, anything DAMNIT. _

“Achilles?” I snap, as I hear the wheels pull up behind me.

“Yes?” he waits, observing me.

_ Kiss me.  _

The doors open, I instinctively get inside.

“Are you gay?”

“As gay as you are drunk.”

The doors close and the last thing I see before we drive away is Achilles laughing. 

The whole ride passes in a haze, as I try not to lean on the window of my seat too much because (other than all the communicable diseases that lurk on every surface) I know nothing will stop me from falling asleep and ending up on the other side of Athens. I trust my legs to take me from my stop to the apartment out of sheer good will and even the keys feel heavy in my fingers as I turn the lock.

There is a long list of things a mature adult does before sleeping and not even close to enough energy or sobriety to do the majority of them, so I have to prioritize. I take off my clothes and give my teeth a fifteen-second brush just to get rid of the taste of the alcohol. I pull the blinds to keep out the sun that’s already making its appearance and finally collapse on the bed.

Seconds before I drift off, I reach for my phone and open the group chat I have with Sissy and Chrysa. I change my nickname to  _ disgrace to this honorable household _ and hastily type  _ if u wake me up b4 noon ur dead _ . 

I press ‘send’ and fall asleep before I can even place the phone back on the nightstand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading once again, i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoy writing it <3
> 
> it's exams season which either means that i will write five chapters in three days to ignore my responsibilities, or write nothing at all, stay tuned to find out!


	4. Chapter 4

The fluorescent light in the doctors’ bathroom is piercing my brain, but I stubbornly sit on the closed lid of the toilet, desperate for the few moments of peace and quiet that only this room of the hospital can grant me.

I don’t know if Hell exists, but I feel like Mondays at work is the closest I have gotten to it. There is an ongoing craziness, an endless buzz of doctors’ demands and patients’ complaints and nurses’ comments, and you can practically breathe in the tension and the nerves, the whole building an unhinged clock that is trying to get its clogs back into place at the start of every week.

And before you know it, somewhere between your consultant yelling at you about something that is definitely not your fault and a patient’s blood pressure skyrocketing with no apparent reason other than the universe hating the idea of you catching a break, it’s suddenly nine in the evening and the thought crosses your mind that surviving on a four-shot espresso instead of lunch should not be viable.

But in the tiny bathroom, I know my time of leisure is running out and I must pay attention to one vital organ at a time. The stomach would be a good idea, but as a proper millennial, I take my phone out of my white coat and give my brain a chance to shut down for a few minutes, something only social media can grant me.

I absentmindedly scroll through my notifications- an old friend’s birthday that I can get away with not bothering to pay attention to, my phone company texting me to let me know about a brand new offer I have no intention to take up, an Instagram message from Sissy which I actually open and read.

_ anthony’s pics are out _

_ not that i’m biased but we look hot  _

I click the link at the bottom of the message and I find myself on a different profile, a much more professional one compared to Sissy’s clusterfuck of selfies, museum exhibits and book quotes and my extraordinary collection of exactly five pictures, only two of which actually include my face.

Anthony is Sissy’s friend from high school, an incredibly talented photographer and a very handsome man, not necessarily in the most traditional sense, but mostly in that manner of people who don’t give a shit about what everyone else thinks about them. We actually went on a few dates back in my fifth year of med school, when Sissy was convinced that they would find me dead on an ortho textbook, but we never quite managed to move in the same pace, whatever possible feelings lost somewhere between my six am alarm and his five am bedtime. 

There are no hard feelings on either side though, and that is evident, not only because he gladly offered to take our picture when we happened to come across him at Pride, but also because, in the photo I see on the top row of his page, he has worked his magic to make us look, as Sissy put it, undeniably hot. My arms are over the girls’ shoulders and we’re laughing with the ease of people who have made a second home out of the camera lense, even though I usually avoid the click and flash like the plague. Everything, from our wide smiles, to the immaculate make-up, to the colorful balloons rising behind us as if timed for the picture, it’s all glowing with happiness, somehow managing to convey the exact feeling of heartwarming joy we felt that afternoon on that square. 

I double-tap our faces and as the red heart emerges, I make a mental note to thank Anthony, congratulate him on his work and how far he seems to have come. I let my eyes wander a little over his shots, admire the harmony that binds them all together, that unique style- 

My thumb freezes over a single take, the breath catches at my throat. I blink a couple of times, my phone suddenly feeling heavy and fragile like a bomb.

Achilles is caught mid-motion, probably during the show I missed- he is standing tall, his bruised cheek turned away from the camera, his arm extended to his side, his fingers curled, as if reaching for something. His other hand is crawling up his throat, his veins tracing pulsing paths all across his forearm, and the part of his face that is visible is the picture of passion. 

It’s a stark contrast to the glimpses of him I caught that night, from the fatherly worry during Sophia’s incident, from the relaxed figure on the stage after the show, from the easy smiles on our way to the bus stop. And still, it’s undeniably  _ him _ , a part that I have not come in contact with, but whose presence feels natural, a dark side that belongs to the moon just as much as the bright one we get to marvel at every night.

It’s been two days since that night (the one where I made a complete fool of myself), and I haven’t been able to think about it enough to make me want to crawl inside a hole and disappear. Thankfully, I’ve had plenty of distractions: a headache, Chrysa’s farewell dinner, my thirty-six-hour shift, an embarrassment profound enough to fuel at least a week’s worth of denial.

But as I raise my head for a second and catch a glimpse of my face on the mirror above the sink, something clicks. I don’t know what it is that got my brain out of the survival-slash-autopilot mode, but I have what seems to be the first smart and innovative thought of the day.

I tap the picture and it takes over the screen. I tap again and, surely enough, the grey frame of a tagged username pops up.

I don’t manage to see much, other than a name, a page that gives of a sense of general organization, and a number of followers that would be impressive if I wasn’t friends with Chrysa, who has four times that number and is close to getting that cherished blue tick of verification- and there’s a knock on the door.

“Doctor, the lady in 209 has a fever,” the nurse calls, and my kingdom of white bathroom tiles and four different kinds of sanitizer comes crashing down as I am forcefully ejected back to reality.

“Be right there!” I call back, take a deep breath, and before the excitement can wear out, I click the ‘follow’ button. 

\---

This Hell Monday has valiantly earned its title. The next time I enter my bathroom kingdom, the first rays of sun are out, my scrubs are covered in blood and I change out of them while standing up because I’m too scared that if I sit down I will fall asleep on whatever surface I first come in contact with.

I barely notice that it’s a beautiful day as I exit the hospital, that point in the early morning when there is still a freshness in the light breeze, as the city slowly wakes up. In some other universe, in some other career, I have just woken up, fully rested and energized, maybe I even go for a run.

But in this one, I get into the first available cab in the long line of yellow vehicles at the gate, lacking the willpower even to walk the twenty minutes to the apartment.

I hold the bag (which I may have to burn, given the higher-than-usual percentage of bodily fluids in it) close to my chest in the backseat and mumble the address, when I notice the driver staring at me at the rearview mirror. My brain instantly embraces that particular horror movie scenario in which I am driven off to the middle of nowhere and violently murdered, when the man cracks a smile as bright as the rising sun outside. 

“Hey, I remember you!” he exclaims. I don’t know if under different conditions his graying hair and kind black eyes would remind me of anything, but I also don’t know if he expects an answer- taxi drivers rarely do. “You stitched me up the other day!”

He holds out his right hand and the healing cut along his palm does ring a bell, but it’s more like a tiny triangle in the cathedral of cymbals that is the Emergency Room. Still, I smile and nod and say something about how he seems to be doing much better.

I don’t know if it’s my chin that’s resting on the bag in front of me or if my eyes stay closed a second too long every time I blink, but he takes the hint and the ride passes in silence. Soon enough, we are parked in the neighborhood that is slowly coming to life and I reach for my wallet.

“Don’t even think about it, boy, this one’s on me,” the man says and I try to protest but he’s not having any of it. “Please, just get some sleep.”

It is exactly what I’m planning to do, but as I thank him and walk to my door, the thoughts of longing for my bed give up a little space for a moment of gratitude. The kindness of strangers is always refreshing and the man’s wide grin and honest words are a gift that I did not expect but is still enough- 

The comparison makes me stop in my tracks outside the apartment door.

I take out my phone, light up the lockscreen, for once not to check how many hours until the end of my shift.

Holy shit, it  _ is _ my birthday. 

\---

“Να ζήσεις Πάτροκλε, και χρόνια πολλά…”

I am barely through the door and I come face to face with a chocolate muffin, a lit lighter held above it, and Sissy belting out the birthday song. Her voice is horrendous as per usual, but she’s smiling and I can’t help but smile too. 

“Make a wish,” she says once she’s done and as I blow out the tiny flame of the lighter, I wish for eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. When you have someone who went to the bakery at an ungodly hour to get a birthday muffin and chose to spend hours during which she could be sleeping waiting behind the door for you to get back from work, you don’t need much else. “Happy birthday, you idiot.”

“Thank you,” I reply and hug her tightly. My stomach growls at the sight of the little cake (saved from any falling wax accidents by Sissy’s genius lighter idea), but I still cut it in half and give her one of the pieces. I devour mine in two bites and, amidst the chewing, say something that resembles “Sorry I didn’t answer your midnight call.”

“It’s okay, I figured you were saving the world or something,” Sissy waves me off and collapses on the couch to savor every chocolate bite. “You can still make it right though.”

I am throwing my dirty laundry in the bathroom, but I know she knows I am squinting. “I’m already scared.”

Sissy waits for me to get back and sit with her on the couch before she continues. This is  _ not _ a good sign.

“Can I throw you a party on Saturday?” 

Ah, there it is.

My first instinct is to say no. I’ve had my fair share of parties with this woman and the outcomes have ranged from cleaning vomit from the balcony floor on all fours at six in the morning to holding her hand in a hospital emergency room, me dead worried and her drunkenly trying to hit on the resident doctor. 

But then I look over and her eyes are pleading and I know the dark circles under them are there because she has barely been sleeping since Chrysa left for London again, no matter how many extra jokes she’s been cracking in order to pretend that everything is fine. But maybe she will indeed feel a little better if she has something to put her energy into, something that will take her mind off the fact that she won’t see her girlfriend for who knows how many months. 

“I have conditions,” I say instead.

This seems to be enough to get her spirits up, her eyes now glowing as she scoots closer to me. “Anything.”

“No more than twenty people, all of whom I know, and it’s ‘bring your own booze’. I don’t want presents and we are on a low budget this month.”

“Deal,” she replies in a heartbeat.

“I can’t force you not to get drunk, but no matter how wasted you get, you have to stay up until we’ve cleaned the whole place.”

“Even the vomit?”

“ _ Especially _ the vomit.”

“I guess that’s fair. Are you done?”

I can stop there. No matter what I throw at her, we are both aware that she has won. But you can be sure that, no matter how exhausted I am, I will always find the time and willpower to mess with my best friend.

“We’re getting strawberry cake.”

“You’re an asshole who is exploiting my kindness,” Sissy shoots back, and I can see her inner turmoil, torn between her need to throw this party and having to defend her lifelong principle of ‘desserts with fruit in them are atrocities, not desserts’. 

“Take it or leave it, sweetie.”

“You drive a hard bargain, young man, but you’ve found me at my weakest. I accept.”

“See, it wasn’t so hard,” I say condescendingly and plant a kiss on her hair, before standing up and heading to my bedroom. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, can I sleep until tomorrow morning now?”

“Can I have a condition too?” she asks and I turn, leaning on the doorframe, which I am sure makes me look cool and nonchalant, but at this point I just need something to hold up my weight en route to the mattress. 

“You mean other than forcing me to promise money, part of my honor, and most likely my firstborn to some colleague I probably don’t even like so I can trade the Saturday shift to actually be at the party?”

“I want you to invite Achilles.”

I take out my phone, which I’ve completely neglected for the better part of my shift. I open Instagram. There’s a single follow request, which makes my heart beat a little faster, despite my exhaustion. 

“I will process your demands and get back to you,” I say, and shut the door behind me.

\---

When I wake up, my phone is ringing (silently, in ‘do not disturb’ mode) on the nightstand and I put  _ some _ effort into not sounding like I was sleeping one minute ago as I accept the wishes of a nurse who cares enough to call instead of texting but I am still pretty sure was made aware of the occasion by facebook. 

It’s a little after three pm and I could get up, make some coffee, order myself something nice for lunch (breakfast?). But there is a light breeze coming from the open balcony door and I have somehow achieved the perfect body temperature with one leg hanging out of the sheets, so I decide that my birthday present will be allowing myself to slouch on the bed for as long as I want or at least for as long as my growing hunger permits.

There’s another missed call, this time from the orphanage director, but I do want that interaction to have my full attention and not some half-asleep version of it, so I make a note to call back after I’ve eaten and showered. A couple of posts on my facebook wall, as well as some texts that I will get to late at night, if not tomorrow (perk of the job: people tend to forgive you fairly easily when you don’t do things on time), and a notification that Sissy tagged me in an Instagram story.

Of course she would. For all I know, this is a direct repercussion of my strawberry cake requirement. A shiver of embarrassment runs up my spine and I try not to cringe too much when I am greeted by a picture of me, from the summer I turned twenty-two. I am asleep with a gaping mouth on a plastic chair on the deck of a ship heading to Crete, our first vacation together, my body folded in a way that should not be humanly possible, my head sporting a haircut that should not be allowed.

_ He works one day and then sleeps for the following two, but at least he pays the rent on time (what was your excuse back then?). Happy birthday to the best roommate and friend I could ever ask for, I will always love you and your dubious haircut choices.  _

As the old saying goes, all is fair in birthdays and war. And this birthday war has been raging for years. I press the ‘share’ button and repost it on my own story, for all my two hundred and eighty-three followers to enjoy- she can have this one, but when her own birthday comes this fall, she won’t know what hit her.

Not two minutes have passed, when my phone buzzes with a new direct message and I am suddenly reminded of the fact that as of this morning, my followers are two hundred and eighty-four.

_ Χρόνια πολλά!  _

_ Happy birthday. _ It’s all Achilles has written, it’s two words, it’s what’s expected of any decent acquaintance who sees what I’ve posted, and still it’s enough to cause my heart to somersault.

I click on his icon as I try to calm down, remembering that I didn’t have the time to actually go through his profile last night. It has a little bit of everything- rehearsals and shows, landscapes and sunsets, a selfie or two. I catch myself having scrolled back two years, all the while wondering how it’s possible for someone to look  _ that _ good, when the phone in my hands vibrates again.

_ If it makes you feel any better, I quite like the haircut.  _

Two messages, three minutes apart, or as Sissy would call it, the  _ ‘I desperately want an excuse to talk to you’ _ technique.

That thought gives me the strength to go back to our conversation panel and actually reply.

_ thank you! _

_ i am aware i looked like a playmobil toy and not even one of those collections we were dying to have when we were like seven _

_ but who didn’t make horrible choices in college _

It’s all read immediately and I sit up in bed as he starts typing again. 

_ At least you get to have a choice. You should try living with my hair. _

I shoot back something about how having fewer choices would make me less disastrous. He complains about how few hairdressers in Athens actually know how to style afro hair.

Falling back into conversation with him is as easy as it was that night on the emptying stage downtown, one sentence leading to the next, an unbreakable sequence, a dance that seems equal parts improvised and rehearsed into muscle memory during our whole lives.

I take him with me to the bathroom as I wash my face, to the kitchen as I stir my coffee, to the couch as I absentmindedly channel-surf, not really paying attention to anything other than that buzz in my fingers and the smile it brings to my lips. 

More than an hour has passed and suddenly there’s a voice message. 

_ ‘Hi, sorry for the recording, but I am crossing the street and my director will kill me if I get run over ten days before the premiere. I have to get to rehearsal, but I’m really glad we got to talk. Happy birthday, again!’ _

He ends the message with a small laugh and I remember Sissy’s earlier request. I would send a voice message too, but I am too much of a coward and too scared that my microphone is sensitive enough to catch the sound of my frantically beating heart. So I type.

_ it’s okay! _

_ actually, i wanted to tell you _

_ my roommate is throwing me a birthday party this saturday _

_ nothing too big (or at least i told her not to make it too big, let’s hope she listens to me) _

_ so tell me if you’d like to drop by and i’ll send you the address and the details! _

_ have fun at rehearsal! _

I think about adding a thousand disclaimers, like  _ ‘it’s okay if you cannot make it!’  _ and  _ ‘no pressure to reply right away!’ _ but I throw my phone on a cushion on the other side of the couch before my overthinking manages to embarrass me too much or convince me that the amount of exclamation marks will scare him off. I give myself a mental pat on the back for managing to send those texts without having a heart attack and try to focus on some dumb rom-com that is on tv and I’ve missed the first forty minutes of, but I’m pretty sure the events will be easy enough to guess.

When I am forced to look back at my phone to decide what I’ll order, there are no new notifications and I cannot help but check the messages panel. He has been offline since he sent that recording.

So I take a deep breath. I order a pizza and call Madame Stephanou from the orphanage. We talk until my food arrives, and she tells me how proud she is of me just before hanging up, and I think that this is, indeed, a happy birthday. 

\---

The reply comes late at night, when Sissy has gotten home, I have told her everything, and enough time has passed so she has stopped fussing over that ‘call of destiny’ and we are back to arguing about which trashy reality show makes the best dinner companion.

_ Sure thing! I have rehearsal until late, but I’ll come by afterwards! Can I bring someone with me?  _

I start to wonder who that someone might be and how many strangers I can have in my house on a night that is supposed to be all about me, when a new message arrives.

_ (It’s just that Sophia won’t let me hear the end of it if I don’t tell her to tag along. She keeps talking about you. She may have a crush on you. Tell me if it’s too awkward and I won’t say a word.)  _

I smile at the screen and tell him that of course he can bring his friend. I can deal with a nineteen-year-old girl who still hasn’t noticed that I am a disaster, and honestly, I really like Sophia and I am sure we can be good friends after she realizes she is not, in fact, into me.

“What’s going on?” Sissy asks, having noticed my grin and stopped her aimless Netflix scrolling.

“Your wish shall be fulfilled. Now put on Queer Eye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you so much for reading! i am sorry i suck at replying to your comments, but know that i see them, i cherish them, and they are a big part of what keeps me going with this fic!
> 
> this chapter was supposed to be posted along with the next one, but it ended up being around 4k words on each own, so i decided it to cut it in two... which helps with the suspense as well
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it and hopefully the next one will not take me too long to get to!
> 
> there's a party coming, after all...


	5. Chapter 5

One would say that after so many years of friendship, I should have known that giving ‘conditions’ for Sissy to work under would be a horrible mistake. 

Sure enough, I know all the people who are steadily arriving at the apartment- mutual friends, a few colleagues from the hospital, guests that would have been on my list as well, should I have been the one to make it. They come in carrying their bottles of vodka and tequila and the occasional rum, six packs of beer and those family size bags of chips that they use at bars. Everyone hugs me or kisses both my cheeks and none of them have brought anything inedible or undrinkable that could be considered a present. Sissy is still admirably sober even though she has had the chance not to be, which is very promising for a future in which I am not left alone scrubbing digestive tract contents from -hopefully only- the bathroom floor, and in the fridge lies a deliciously pink strawberry cake which she stares at scornfully every time she enters the kitchen. 

But there is also a huge inflatable pink flamingo in the middle of the living room. Because as long as the rules are followed, anything not included in them is up for grabs. I should have seen it coming, that as well as Sissy’s extravagant pineapple sunglasses. I accepted my defeat at my own game and have been on door duty ever since.

The doorbell rings are farther apart and I consider secretly pushing a pin through the flamingo and letting it wither and die with all of us as witnesses of its tragic fate, but before I can put my master plan into action an arm is thrown around my shoulder and a plastic cup shoved in my hand.

“You know I came for the free cake and booze, but I can’t stand to see you loitering like that. Drink up, birthday boy.”

And you can’t really say no to Menios, with his husky voice and ginger hair, flirting with his two meters of height and also everything with two legs and a heartbeat. We went to med school together for a couple of years, one of those very smart kids whose good grades turned medicine into a one-way street, until the day came that we saw our first dead body lying on the anatomy table and Menios’ long and lanky one lying on the ground after he passed out. That constituted enough evidence that maybe he had taken the wrong path and we never saw him in class again, but the two of us always kept in touch, through his identity crisis and choice to go to culinary school and discount meals at the fancy restaurant in which he now works as a sous chef. 

That’s the story we reminisce about as we empty our cups (mine was thankfully just cider) and it’s the gateway for me to start mingling in my own birthday party, and as people’s faces light up as I move from group to group, I am starting to think that maybe this  _ was _ a good idea after all.

  
Still, I can’t help but steal glances at the door every so often, linger close to the main entrance doorbell in case I miss its ringing. 

“Θα έρθει,” Sissy whispers in my ear when I come across her on the way to the bathroom.  _ He will come _ . And sure enough, when I get back to the heart of the party, there are two freshly arrived guests waiting for me. 

It’s Sophia who notices me first and in a matter of seconds her arms are around me, squeezing me in that loving way I can deal with being squeezed. There’s a flow of wishes and compliments and comments that I cannot keep up with, so I just nod and thank and smile until I am abandoned in the name of our ever growing open bar in the corner of the room.

Achilles’ hug, in contrast, is quick but tight and certain. “Happy birthday,” he says before letting go, and I feel like a weight has been lifted from my chest. I smile and he smiles back and for a moment I can almost ignore the horrendous trap music that is coming from the speakers behind me, another flaw in my scheme to limit Sissy’s plans. 

I have barely managed to thank him when I am drawn away by Dimitra, fellow desperate surgical resident and the closest thing I have met to a genius, who has decided to use her power for evil and needs me to be included in the selfie she is going to send to the residents on shift tonight. I make a mental note to drop by the bakery across the hospital on Monday morning and bring a box of croissants as a gesture of apology, as I hide half of my face behind my empty cup and smile for the camera. 

I turn, and he’s gone. He’s gone from the spot I left him, but his presence in the room is more vibrant with every passing second- I knew that he is sociable, but this is a whole new thing. He shifts from person to person, talking and laughing and charming, leaving each one mesmerized and desperate for a few more seconds in his glow. He clinks glasses with Sissy and gracefully spins Sophia on the dancefloor and turns all these people he has never seen before into his fans with a wink and clever comment. 

And every few moments, his eyes find mine in the crowd and he smiles earnestly, almost apologetically, and I’m okay with him keeping the spotlight away from me because it’s evident that he can still spot me in the shadows. 

“Come dance with me, doc!” Sophia breaks my train of thought and before I can object, she’s dragging me to the center of the room where people are moving to the rhythm in varying levels of elegance and drunkenness. 

I sway to the beat- I know I am not horrible at this, but I am not exactly great either, and it works because this median situation helps keep unwanted attention away from me. The girl in front of me laughs and flips her brown hair in a way that could be considered seductive and I remember what Achilles mentioned in his text- maybe this would be a good time to make a few things clear.

“Can I ask you something?” Sophia begins. 

_ Here we go, _ I think and nod for her to go on, as my brain turns frantically to find the right words, the least hurtful ones, but still get my point across.

“Is she single?”

I almost stop moving entirely, trying to register her question. “Excuse me?” 

“Your roommate, Sissy. Is she single?”

An image of the two girls talking enthusiastically in front of the hallway mirror, Sissy moving her hands around enough to poke someone’s eye out and Sophia looking utterly mesmerized by whatever passionate rant my friend is delivering suddenly flashes to the front of my brain and things make more and less sense at the same time.

“She’s not, I’m sorry,” I say, and spare her the details about Chrysa that would not benefit her in any way.

“Ah, it’s okay,” she says and shrugs, that remarkable quality of nineteen-year-olds to get utterly invested and utterly over whatever life throws at them in a matter of seconds. “There was no harm in asking.”

She takes my hand and spins me around without missing a beat of the music, and I am sure our height difference makes it look ridiculous, but when I am facing her again I am laughing. 

“Your teacher thought you have a crush on me,” I can’t help but mention and sure enough, she bursts out laughing. “What, he said that you talk about me all the time,” I say, giggling along with her.

“I talk about you all the time because he is happy when we talk about you, and I quite like seeing him happy.” 

My giggle gets cut short and I stop moving altogether as the song changes and the people on the dancefloor shift. I try to say something, but only incoherent sounds come out, and Sophia gently squeezes my shoulder.

“I am gonna go get another drink, and I think you need to get some air.” 

She nods towards the hallway door (where I can just catch a glimpse of a head of brown curls disappearing), winks, and heads for the bar.

\---

I find him on the kitchen balcony, a tiny and dirty place, home to our broom and mop, a few buckets, and any belonging that lives in that realm between truly needed and completely useless- a stark contrast to our spacey living room balcony, with its patio furniture and pretty plants, that is currently crowded with people catching a break from the dance and the noise.

He turns at the creak of the door opening and I manage to see the lit cigarette in his hand and the wistful look on his face, before a small smile creeps up on his lips.

“Is this off limits? I just needed a quiet place to talk on the phone-”

“And you stayed for the pretty view?” I ask and I lean on the railing beside him. Cars parked mostly illegally, a series of lamp posts spaced a little too far apart, a dumpster with a cat circling its edge, wondering if the content is worth the dive. Gotta love Athens.

He laughs, takes a long drag of his cigarette and then holds it out to me. 

“Thanks, I don’t smoke,” I wave it off. He will probably think that it’s because of my profession, because he hasn’t seen the smog that takes over the break room at the hospital at any given chance of a breather. The truth is, just like my stomach can’t handle its alcohol, my lungs can’t really handle their smoke.

“Me neither, not really,” he mentions, sinking what’s left of the cigarette in his almost empty cup and putting it on the closest available surface, that is an old wooden stool that’s been banished on that balcony for a few months now. “Just one or two every once in a while, for the nerves.”

“What are you nervous about?” I ask, and it feels like we are in some other world, a small pocket universe for the two of us, where you can still hear the distant beat of the music behind, but holds a sense of privacy and solemnity that the other side of the glass lacks.

He looks at his empty palms for a moment before turning to face me, as if he’s calculating his response. “Big premiere next weekend,” he replies and with his smile that earlier wistfulness disappears.

“I’d say ‘break a leg’, but the ER is full enough as it is,” I say, surprised at my smoothness, but deciding to ride it out. “Do you want another drink? I know where the hosts hide the good stuff.”

“Nah, I have rehearsal in the morning, they’ll kill me if I show up hungover a week before the big show,” he explains. “But don’t let me stop you.”

“I’ve had two ciders all night, I’ve tried cleaning up a party mess while drunk and it was not fun.”

We settle into comfortable sober silence, momentarily interrupted by the incredibly romantic sounds of a group of drunk girls singing out of tune at the top of their lungs in an alleyway close by and a cut exhaust pipe in the distance. 

“Your friends are really nice.”

“They seem to think the same about you,” I say and I’m surprised to see he doesn’t seem to understand what I’m talking about. “But yeah, they’re pretty cool, even though most of them are here for the free booze,” I joke.

He doesn’t take it as a joke. “Don’t do that.” He leans on the railing on his left elbow to face me more openly and his eyes are suddenly fixed on mine.

“Don’t do what?”

“You keep underestimating yourself. And I know that many times you’re joking, but I can’t stand to think that you may consider any of that self-deprecating shit to be the truth. Because you have been amazing at everything I’ve ever seen you do, and it only makes sense that all those people in there love you to pieces, and I’m glad it’s like that because it makes it easier to rationalize why I think about you as much as I do, so please, don’t talk about yourself like that.”

He says all that in almost one breath. I kiss him. 

It’s barely a brush of lips at first, as he freezes in place and for a millisecond I catch myself wondering if I’m making a huge mistake, if that undeniable force that made me lean in was only in my head.

But then there’s a hand on my cheek and another one on my waist and I can hear the sharp breath Achilles takes as he brings our bodies together. Our lips haven’t moved an inch, anchored in place while our bodies fit together in a way that shouldn’t come so naturally, and as he takes that breath, I let out the one I didn’t realize I was holding.

And then he moves. Or I do. At once, there are lips opening and teeth clinging, my fingers in his curls, my back against the railing. There’s an inherent rhythm in the way our bodies move against each other, there’s a cool breeze in the summer air, there’s a warmth filling my body. 

There are no rainbows and butterflies, no fireworks behind closed eyelids, only a sense of finally, finally,  _ finally _ . 

His thumb caresses my cheekbone as he barely pulls away, still close enough for me to feel the smile on his lips. “I wanted to kiss you,” he confesses. “At that bus station, I wanted to kiss you, but you were drunk and I couldn’t.” 

Whatever I plan to say is interrupted by the sound of someone battling to get the old creaky balcony door to open, only a hand visible emerging from the curtains. A widening crack opens, the music spills out, and as our pocket universe gets dismantled, we pull apart.

“I am  _ so _ sorry,” Sophia says as she slowly and carefully steps out to our ephemeral realm, her gaze wandering around, making an effort to show that she didn’t witness anything. “I know you hate me right now, and trust me, I hate me more, but you made me promise I would make sure you’ve left by two am, no matter how busy you are or how much fun you’re having.”

Achilles nods, his hand on his chin in a seemingly pensive gesture, while he is unsuccessfully trying to conceal his swollen lips. “Thank you, Sophia, give me a minute and I’ll be with you.”

The girl leaves as quickly as she appeared and Achilles turns to me, the bubble suddenly burst and him trying to make the best out of whatever little oxygen we have left.

“I know you said no gifts, but I want you to have this,” he says and takes a white envelope out of his jeans pocket. He forces it into my hand as I had once forced a water bottle into his and pulls me into a hug. “I really want you to be there.” 

He brushes his lips against my cheek as he pulls away and he is back into the house in an instant, leaving me in the company of months of junk, a makeshift ashtray and two invitations to the most renowned upcoming ballet recital of the country.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading! <3 i hope you enjoyed it, i definitely took joy in finally letting these two be A Little Happy for once
> 
> university is killing me, but what better escape mechanism than these idiots

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading this far, kudos and comments are always loved and appreciated <3
> 
> I have absolutely no idea how long the whole thing will turn out to be, I plan to just follow to where these disaster gays take me, but it will be at least a few chapters. 
> 
> I live in Athens, which means all the small facts about the city and the country will probably be accurate. I am also a med student, but that certainly does not mean that the medical facts will be accurate as well.


End file.
